The Virginia Tech football team will pay tribute to Sandy Hook victims with special helmet decals. / Greg M. Cooper, USA TODAY Sports

by Scott M Gleeson, USA TODAY Sports

by Scott M Gleeson, USA TODAY Sports

The Virginia Tech campus knows all too well the resonating pain of a horrific tragedy.

With the school's football team slated to play against Rutgers on Friday in the Russell Athletics Bowl, the Hokies will be wearing a special helmet decal to honor both the Newtown, Conn., school shooting victims and the victims of the similar tragedy that took place on Virginia Tech's campus in 2007's mass school shooting.

The Roanoke Times reports that the decal is half green for Sandy Hook Elementary School and half orange for Virginia Tech with the number 58 in the center, representing the combined number of victims at the schools in the shooting incidents. It also has the word "Prevail" written across it.

"We've been through what those people up in Sandy Hook are going through," Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer said via The Times. "We prevailed in Blacksburg. If anything, it brought us closer and [made us] more determined. The same thing is happening there, where the community is just coming together.